Taking Professional Development Seriously

Professional development ranks high on my personal priority list. As a registered nurse, I understand the importance of keeping up with the latest research-based thinking and, more importantly, to ensure I include it in my practice. In fact, I am clear that the level of ‘seriousness’ I place on this directly affects my professional image, my ‘brand.”

In a previous blog, I shared with all of you the importance of personal branding and offered some essential behaviors to demonstrate effective leadership. In this blog, I wish to promote professional development as a core component for a positive professional image/brand. In fact, lifelong learning has been noted to be an essential component of our practice by nursing leaders. So, what does lifelong learning mean? To me, it means that I am constantly evaluating my performance against best practice. When I identify a gap, I develop a plan to mitigate that same gap. For example, as I look at my Onsomble–OnRole assessment, I identified specific educational opportunities to increase my level of competency and to make me a better leader.

Please take a moment to review your assessment. Have you noticed opportunities for improvement? More importantly, what have you done to increase your performance? What type of professional brand do you wish to be known for?